Is Consulting Right for You?

The Muse
, ContributorA career- and lifestyle-focused magazine and community for young professional women.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

I recently saw Avenue Q (the cheeky puppet musical that tells the story of new college grads) and one of the characters was a lovable, unemployed comedian who was having a hard time finding a job and figuring out what it was that he was good at.

At the end of the play as things started neatly wrapping up for the cast, (spoiler alert) we find out he found a job as a consultant. The NYC crowd in attendance went wild: The insinuation was he had no idea what that meant, but it paid well and heck, even this wanderer could fit in there.

As a consultant, imagine my indignation! So I did what every other normal person in the same situation would do—start fervently whispering my defense of consulting to my friends. For some reason, they didn't seem to care, but now that I have your attention, I'll continue it here.

Honestly, consultants can have a bad reputation. From Kalon, the luxury brand consultant in The Bachelorette, who made his grand entrance onto the show via helicopter (seriously—even I can’t defend you, Kalon) to the popular phrase “consultants take your watch and tell you what time it is”—the image isn’t always positive. However, the industry has survived despite these stereotypes and it still continues to attract top talent across the world.

Why? While there are many reasons, I attribute it most to the way consulting develops its people. Consultants are exposed to a wide variety of experiences and are taught how to apply lessons learned in other situations to the ones at hand. Moreover, consulting instills in its recruits an extraordinary amount of discipline and technique that they would be hard-pressed to gain at such an intense and focused level elsewhere.

Consulting can offer you incredible experiences and career prospects—but it does also ask for a significant investment of your time and energy. If you’re thinking about consulting, here is what you should consider as you make your decision:

1. The TSA agent will know your name and you won’t run into Ryan Gosling at the airport

Yes, consultants travel all the time, and no, it’s not glamorous. Don’t get me wrong: It can be fun at times, and there’s a certain amount of self-discovery that occurs when you’re eating alone at Cheesecake Factory in some random town, but you have to be prepared that your Monday–Thursday are no longer yours to schedule as you please. You will learn to methodically plan your Friday–Sunday to squeeze in family, friends, doctor’s appointments, haircuts, and any other semblance of a personal life. If you’re in a relationship or have kids, it makes it even harder to leave that physically behind every week. Of course, most firms try to accommodate special circumstances, but travel is still a major part of the job description.